1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to video printing, and more particularly, to printing video images on a printable medium.
2. State of the Art
Video printers for producing photographic-like images from a video input are known. These devices produce high resolution images on a medium such as thermal paper.
For example, a video printer is described in a brochure entitled, "Color Video Printer UP-5100/UP5150" available from Sony Corp. A brochure entitled, "Near Photographic Quality Color Prints From A Variety of Video Sources" describes a Color Video Printer UP-3000 also available from Sony Corp. The video printers as described in these brochures are directed to providing high quality prints of video images on photographic-like paper. A brochure entitled, "CP-110U Color Video Printer," and a brochure entitled, "CP-210U Large Format Color Video Printer," both available from Mitsubishi, describe similar devices for producing high resolution prints of video images on photographic-like paper.
Despite their apparent appeal, conventional video printers have only realized limited commercial use. This is because conventional video printers reflect the trend to focus on producing high resolution prints of near photographic quality without regard to commercial practicality. Accordingly, conventional video printers suffer significant drawbacks which are believed to have resulted in their commercial impracticality. For example, in addition to being expensive to purchase and use, conventional video printers can not accurately capture a given video frame; rather, activation of a print button on the video printer results in a capture and print of whatever frame happens to be in a frame buffer at a given time.
In general, the mechanism used to capture a frame of video data is typically a print key which acts as a command to store a frame of an input video signal, with the frame which is stored corresponding to the point and time at which the command is recognized by the video printer. A conventional video printer captures a video image (e.g., NTSC, PAL, SECAM, VGA format in either analog or digital), processes the video image for a target printer mechanism and prints the video image on photographic-like paper.
Because the mechanism used to capture a frame of the input video signal is relatively inaccurate, numerous costly photographic-like prints must typically be obtained before a desired frame is captured and printed. Thus, conventional video printers are extremely limited in their usefulness since they can only respond to a relatively inaccurate user activated control button.